Talk:Cracks of Doom
Some Needed Changes I renamed this article to reflect its name in the book (FR: 'The Shadow of the Past'). The article also needs to be changed to reflect the true nature of the Cracks of Doom. They were not the volcano but a great, fiery fissure within. Consider the following from FR. When Gandalf was talking to Frodo about the necessity of destroying the Ring and Frodo had proposed doing so, Gandalf explained that it was a matter not easily done—that no smithy's fire was hot enough and that not even the fire of the great dragons of old could destroy the One Ring. "There is only way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire Mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really want to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever." This shows that Orodruin was one thing and the Cracks of Doom another. —N3rus 03:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC) Sammath Naur Are Sammath Naur and the Cracks of Doom simply different names for the same thing? Specifics concerning the Cracks of Doom Here's my question. Sauron was supposed to have forged the One Ring in the Cracks of Doom. If the chasm that Frodo and Sam came to in which the ring was finally destroyed was merely a fissure bisecting a tunnel which lead further on into the mountain, how did Sauron forge the Ring there? There was no forge there, at least not one that Frodo and Sam could see. Was that spot really the actual "Crack of Doom" itself, or was the Ring just destroyed there because it was able to make actual contact with the lava of the volcano, and it didn't matter whether it was there or at the actual Cracks themselves? (In which case, perhaps if another volcano could have been located somewhere in Middle-Earth besides Mount Doom, could the Ring have been destroyed there without the dangers of having to penetrate Sauron's realm?) Did Sauron just stand at the fissure with a hammer and anvil that he had brought along from Barad-Dur, or did he maybe reach down close to the lava and do his00:55, April 29, 2014 (UTC) work? Where did the further tunnel beyond the chasm lead? Maybe at the time when Sauron forged the Ring the chasm wasn't there, and his forge was further along at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe being a superhuman spirit, he was able to leap the chasm and continue onward down the tunnel. Also, The Return of The King speaks of the sound of "great engines laboring and throbbing in the depths below" which increase in both volume and velocity to a deafening roar when the Ring is destroyed. Where are these engines and what exactly do they do? Perhaps Sauron had a staircase somewhere to get down to them, certainly there would have to be some kind of access to them to be able to perform maintenance on these machines, whether by Sauron or his servants. What fueled these engines? Perhaps the harnessed volcanic power of the mountain itself? Interesting questions for thought. 22:22, April 21, 2014 (UTC)